Finding stuff

[416Jonny]

I was asked by a gentleman recently about where he could find a part to one of his machines he was working on. Well, I thought this might be a good thing to discuss.

Finding stuff can be easy or really hard. This is where the equipment we use in draft power becomes either a blessing or a throbbing headache.

Take a plow. Some plows I’ve seen people using have bottoms that you can almost assemble from new parts! I’ve also seen some older walking plows that you’d be lucky to ever see another one of in your life. Maybe in a few people’s lives.

Mowers. Lordy, you can find darn near anything you’d need. Unless it’s cast iron. In which case you’d better be looking for a new mower.

It’s kind of a crap shoot to be honest with you. There are some simple lines to look at when you need parts:

1. Hardware store! Things like chains, bolts, welding rod, grease, etc. is usually real close by.

2. Tractor supply stores. These places are great. I can walk around them for hours and never get bored. You can usually find some pretty random stuff in these stores. Parts you’d never imagine anyone would carry in their right mind. Well, wouldn’t you know it, the CT Farm and Country over in Bumpscootsville has forty seven hundred knife bars to that JD #5 mower that’s been sitting in a tree line for thirty years!

3. Dealerships. If you happen to have anything that was built by a company that still exists (including some mergers, Allis-Duetz for example) you stand a pretty good chance that they’ll have the part or can get it. But as most folks know, you’d better be ready to pay through the nose for it. Not always though. Dealer parts tend to be of better quality (as far as I’ve seen) than something flown over from China. It may even be parts left over from when they assembled whatever you’re trying to fix!

4. Auctions. These are like hardware stores and tractor supply stores, they are everywhere and it’s a gamble whether or not they have something you’ll need. All the time somebody is trying to unload everything Grandpa owned in that barn that’s getting torn down before it’s turned into a subdivision. I like auctions. They make me feel warm and fuzzy buying all this stuff for next to nothing instead of it all being melted down into next weeks tire rims. Who knew a plow share could become a set of chromed 22’s?

5. Your neighbor. While you may only talk to them while they pointlessly blow leaves around their manicured lawns to tell them to use a rake, they may have something sitting in the woods they never go into. Or maybe while they were off for the weekend staying at a B&B in ski country they saw the most quiant little grain drill in mint condition holding flowers in them. What’s that you’re saying? It’s being delivered tomorrow on a flat bed? Courtesy is important here, don’t be like me and call them a bunch of yuppie flatlanding scum JUST yet. Wait till you’ve gotten all those seed plates and fertilizer cogs out of it before you tell them to get back in their Lexus and go back to New Jersey.

6. Farmers. Hell, they’ve done this their whole lives, I’d wager they knew where to look. Alot of them collect old iron themselves.

7. The side of the road. No joke. Drive down a proper dirt road and all sorts of stuff is sitting just on the other side of that ditch.

8. The internet. Isn’t technology fun? This is where groups like this is really important. We know what to look for, might have seen one ourselves, know somebody who knows somebody who’s related to the town clerk who told somebody to get that thing off the side of the road before they widen the road to make way for more congestion.

9. Magic. Commonly refered to as gear gnomes. These little buggers fifty years ago stole a part off of something and hid it. But they aren’t really magical, they need places to put all their treasure. Like right in front of you. Last place I ever end up looking for things.

Well, that’s all I could think of. Anybody have any good places they look or companies or people they know that has stuff?

I’m fighting every urge to go off on a George Carlin qoute……

Jonny B.

[Author]

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